SPRINGFIELD - At 17, Cameron M. Faniel began an unfortunate pattern of quitting.

Quitting school. Quitting jobs. He watched his friends graduate high school and go off to college. After a couple years drifting from thing to thing, it got stale.

“I couldn’t balance going to school and working, so I got a job as an usher at a movie theater and I quit that. I had a job at Stop & Shop, but I quit that, too. And then I dropped out of school in 11th grade,” Faniel said.

But, he woke up in time to apply for a summer job through the Massachusetts Career Development Institute this year. Faniel did maintenance and clerical work at the Mason Square Veterans Outreach Center. On Thursday, Faniel, 20, was one of nearly 400 city youth who lined up at the MassMutual Center to collect their checks at a celebration for those who completed seven weeks of work through the YouthWorks, Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the Water and Sewer programs.

“We sent out 4,000 applications. They worked in retail, McDonald’s, marketing, landscaping – you name it,” said Ebony Hopper, youth department coordinator for the job training center.

All of the participants had some kind of “risk factor,” she said, including growing up poor, in single-parent households or getting caught up in the court system.

Hopper said 69 employers participated in the program. And MCDI footed the bill to the tune of $500,000 to pay the workers.

“It gets young people off the streets and gets them prepared for the workforce,” she said.

The city-run job training center has been recruiting youth and putting them to work over the summer for 10 years, according to Hopper.

Faniel said he will attend Holyoke Community College in the fall and plans to get an after-school job to support himself after moving out of his mother’s house recently.

“It’s a challenge to be out there in the world, on your own,” he said. “But I’ve learned through this program to appreciate every opportunity you’re given.”